James Long ’03 fights electoral fraud in Africa, Afghanistan

by
Beth Morrissey, Reves Center for International Studies
|
October 31, 2011

Ask James Long about the
fundamental influences in his career and he looks east to Williamsburg and the
College of William & Mary.

“My first day of class freshman
year I walked into Mike Tierney’s freshman seminar on War and Democracy in the
government department,” said Long
’03, a Ph.D candidate in political science at the University of California,
San Diego. “I’m not even sure I knew what International Relations was or meant,
but I thought I wanted to be an IR major. I credit that class and Mike Tierney
for the original inspiration to pursue my course of study.”

Nearly a decade after that seminar,
Long has made a name for himself studying elections and political
accountability in emerging democracies, including the determinants of voting
behavior, the dynamics of electoral fraud, and the causes and consequences of
political violence.

In 2010, Long served as Democracy
International’s Research Director for its Election Observation Mission for
Afghanistan, and has observed additional elections in Uganda (2011),
Afghanistan (2009), Ghana (2008), and Kenya (2007).

“I originally became interested
in electoral fraud when I conducted a nationwide exit poll for Kenya’s 2007
election,” explained Long. “The data from (that) survey were the only
independent sources of information that showed that the government had
systematically rigged the election, Moreover, I obtained copies of vote tallies
that had been clearly altered to favor the governing party.”

The insights gained helped Long
think about further research on tally fraud in other countries. He and UCSD
colleague Mike Callen designed a monitoring technology for election observers
in Afghanistan.

“It involves delivering a letter
to polling station managers on election day announcing that their station will
be monitored by local Afghans, who will return the next day and photograph the
tallies with digital cameras produced and posted at each location,” Long said. “We
then compare those original tallies with the ones ultimately certified by the
electoral commission to see whether any of them have been altered.”

Long’s conclusion is that this
monitoring has a noticeable impact on electoral fraud.

“We find effects of decreasing
fraud with this kind of technology, which is significantly cheaper than
international monitoring, and allows citizens in their own countries to take
control of election observation,” he said. “We have since replicated our study
with Clark Gibson and Danielle Jung, two colleagues at UCSD, in Uganda. We have
worked with Qualcomm to now use a unique Android smartphone application to
capture and send the photos of tallies.”

In addition to observing
elections, Long has consulted for Democracy International, South Consulting
(Nairobi), UN Development Program (UNDP), African Center for Open Governance
(Nairobi), and conducted field research in Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Chad,
Cameroon, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, Ghana, and Uganda. Long also serves as the
co-principal investigator for the Teaching,
Research and International Policy (TRIP) Project of W&M’s Institute for
the Theory and Practice of International Relations.

“None of my first trips to Africa
would have been possible without the help and support of Lisa Grimes and the Charles Center,” said
Long. “Mike (Tierney) introduced me to Lisa early on, and she quickly
encouraged me to apply for scholarships for research and study abroad. As a
result, I received Wilson, Batten and Boren scholarships to Ethiopia, Kenya,
Sierra Leone and Tanzania. Later in graduate school, after I had left the
College, Lisa also helped me to apply for a successful Fulbright scholarship to
Uganda.”

“Definitely visit the Reves
Center,” Long declared, “and study abroad. Anywhere, it doesn’t matter!
Everyone should study abroad, not just International Relations majors. I spent
a year in Tanzania, and wish it could have been longer.”

Next up for Long is a continuing
study of elections in new democracies, with immediate plans to finish his
dissertation. He credits his family for his success in his studies and career,
noting that William & Mary has been like a second family to him.

“It’s hard to imagine how I would
have gotten here without the dedication of a number of individuals and
institutions at W&M,” he said. “Nobody gets far in academia (or life)
alone, so I encourage students to foster the connections now that they will
have long after they leave the College.”